


transience

by pendules



Series: captain³ [3]
Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-23
Updated: 2014-04-23
Packaged: 2018-01-20 12:08:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1509911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pendules/pseuds/pendules
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Originally posted in May, 2008. Based around the friendlies against the US and Trinidad & Tobago.</p>
    </blockquote>





	transience

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Бесприютность](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1509983) by [Ampaseh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ampaseh/pseuds/Ampaseh)



> Originally posted in May, 2008. Based around the friendlies against the US and Trinidad & Tobago.

The first thing Capello says, or the first thing Stevie hears, is something about how serious this is, that it's not vacation, that they screwed up and they have to pay for it (they've already paid for it—it's relentless: the press and the country and the world). David says he needs to lighten up, but, then again, he thinks that about everyone. _Lighten up._ As if it's all fucking nothing: silverware and pride and losing (winning).

It used to mean something. England. The Three Lions. That white shirt. Stevie's resigned to the fact that that was probably before he was born.

It's a particularly omnipresent question, but it hardly ever gets actually asked. Maybe, with him, there's no reason to. He remembers Xabi's response, remembers feeling guilty (he does, always), hears rumours every year, knows that in the same way you can't transfer nationalities, he can't leave this either (red always means something, a hundred years ago, twenty or right now).

 

Clubs aren't meant to last forever. You come, you win (or you lose), you move on. Countries are a different process: there's a lot of waiting, a lot of holding your breath. There's time (or there's not). He's thirty-three years old. Stories (legends) can last forever, but men can't.

He's never had that kind of glory (he's haunted by dreams that never came true, failures that were his own fault), but he knows about this kind:

He watches them clash again. Watches the tide turn. Watches Stevie cry this time, but watches John cry a month after. Closes his eyes, and remembers nothing to do with them or with '98, but a year later. You never can leave pieces of yourself behind; you get attached whether you hated it or loved it. He wants the world to stop taking itself so seriously so that maybe it won't mean as much, it won't hurt as much when it all ends.

 

John doesn't feel like a failure. Or at least not until Stevie calls. He's not jealous; he feels like giving up. When you're too cautious, when you try to control everything, it's all your fault when something goes wrong. He's not Stevie, and he sure as hell isn't David, and maybe there'll be another time, but maybe there _won't_. He wants to say he doesn't deserve it, any of it, not this captaincy or any other, but doesn't.

Instead, Stevie says, "It all changes now. Just wait for it."

Maybe it's all about waiting.

They meet up a week after, and something is different. They score; they win. John doesn't regret anything he says or does that night. It's been a long while.

 

David knocks on his door sometime in the evening.

"Come on. We have to do something. Celebrate."

He's the last one Stevie expects to celebrate birthdays.

"We're not in England anymore, if you didn't notice."

"So what? The world is ours, mate." Smiles that smile, the one that makes him feel sick, the one he tried to get rid of four years ago.

Stevie doesn't want the world. Maybe he wants to be in Austria or wants to be home; maybe he wants number nineteen; maybe he wants to tell David fucking Beckham to fuck off.

He goes with him, though, because that's what they do.

 

John doesn't call. Alex does. Everyone who should does. Everyone he expects. John doesn't. He wants him to. Wants him to ask how things are and other little trivialities, wants him to ask if David's asked for it yet, wants him to not talk about anything that did or didn't happen two days ago. He's sure he would do it quite well too. He's changed. Maybe he's, in fact, a sign that people _do_ change; they adapt, to things, to really fucking messed-up situations, messed-up relationships, and _people_.

They sit in Stevie's hotel room, Stevie staring out the window like something's going to explode. It's not quiet, and it's not noisy. He likes it. It's not the calm, and it's not the storm; it's an island with a sense of solidity.

He knows he doesn't want it, but it happens anyway. He doesn't know who moves first this time. There's a "He's not going to call, you know," and then a small touch, and a larger one, then a mass of limbs and heat, and he won't remember in the morning.

 

David has five years on him, and five years is so much, especially in their lives. But everyone's getting older, and it seems to have speeded up between now and ten years ago. It's different, though. They'll accept it; he won't.

You can wait. But you can't wait forever. Because there is no forever.

John calls when Stevie's asleep, Saturday morning.

"Hello?"

"David? What the hell—?"

"Someone's irritable today. Fight with the boyfriend?"

"Fuck you."

"You're too late, I'm afraid, someone already did."

A loud click.

 

It never was about dependence. It couldn't have been. It's been four years, and the gaps they had to fill with other things, other people. It's temporary; it always is. But it's routine too in that way. They never get accustomed to each other; it starts all over again when they get called up, when they talk at the end of a season. And it ends when the next starts (and the next one is always bigger, for some reason). They don't wait for each other, but they know they'll be there. Sometimes, that's all you need: reassurance, something that's guaranteed at the end of the road.

David started it, but he's ruining it. He doesn't want it to mean anything. (It doesn't, and it means so much too.) He's scared. He doesn't want anyone to have what he never will again. There is no forever.

 

John doesn't want forever. Neither does Stevie. John just wants Frank to stop asking him if he's okay ( _I'm not, alright? Will you stop it if I say that?_ ), and Stevie just wants to get away from David, get away from guilt. But David's not going anywhere soon, and Stevie's not going anywhere, and John... They all have their place to be: David's is anywhere and everywhere (the world is his), Stevie's is in red when September comes, John's is in blue. And there's something else right now, something that _does_ still mean something. They don't have forever, but they have that. Waiting isn't that hard when it won't be never-ending: when there's something to wait for, something on the other side.


End file.
